Architecture and Public Policy

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CIS explores how changes in the architecture of computer networks affect the economic environment for innovation and competition on the Internet, and how the law should react to those changes. This work has lead us to analyze the issue of network neutrality, perhaps the Internet's most debated policy issue, which concerns Internet user's ability to access the content and software of their choice without interference from network providers.

Charles Belle is the founder and Executive Director of Startup Policy Lab, a new nonprofit think tank dedicated to connecting policymakers and the startup community. Examining public policy at the nexus of startups and technology, Charles' research is currently focused on privacy and how to support local government open data initiatives while simultaneously protecting citizen privacy.

Brett Frischmann joins Villanova as The Charles Widger Endowed University Professor in Law, Business and Economics, effective August 1, 2017. In this new role, Professor Frischmann will promote cross-campus research, programming and collaboration; foster high-visibility academic pursuits at the national and international levels; have the ability to teach across the University; and position Villanova as a thought leader and innovator at the intersection of law, business and economics.

Valarie Kaur is a Non-Residential Fellow at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. She is a lawyer, documentary filmmaker, and interfaith organizer who helps communities tell their stories and organize for social change. She has made award-winning films and led multimedia campaigns on civil rights issues: hate crimes, racial profiling, gun violence, marriage equality, immigration detention, and solitary confinement.

The people of Baltimore are beginning their fifth week under an electronic siege that has prevented residents from obtaining building permits and business licenses – and even buying or selling homes. A year after hackers disrupted the city’s emergency services dispatch system, city workers throughout the city are unable to, among other things, use their government email accounts or conduct routine city business.

The security of our news and media information systems matters as much as the security of personal and commercial information systems. "Information warfare" shows that harms can arise even when there is no unauthorized access, when tools are used as intended, and when there’s no compromise of user privacy settings. In both cases of cybersecurity and news/media security, the threats are asymmetric, the tools readily available, usable for many purposes, and threats are easily disguised as benign.

Today I join several cybersecurity, civil liberties, civil society organizations and researchers in responding to the United Kingdom's GCHQ recent proposal to silently add 'ghost' users from law enforcement or the security services to online chats and calls, including those conducted via encrypted messaging tools like WhatApp, iMessage, or Signal.

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I’m passionate about how net neutrality enables startups to thrive without getting permission or paying taxes to the ISPs that people pay to get online.

Net neutrality is the simple principle that the marketplace, not ISPs, gets to decide what apps, websites, and services win and lose, and it’s enabled tens of thousand of entrepreneurs to build new things.

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Instead of listening to the thousand of startups and investors who argue that ending net neutrality would damage online innovation, FCC chair Ajit Pai is pushing a vote this Thursday to dismantle two decades of open internet protections in one of the biggest corporate giveaways in history.

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Comcast Corp. v. FCC is a 2010 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia case holding that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have ancillary jurisdiction over Comcast’s Internet service under the language of the Communications Act of 1934. In so holding, the Court vacated a 2008 order issued by the FCC that asserted jurisdiction over Comcast’s network management polices and censured Comcast from interfering with its subscribers' use of peer-to-peer software.

In 2005, on the same day the FCC re-classified DSL service and effectively reduced the regulatory obligations of DSL providers, the FCC announced its unanimous view that consumers are entitled to certain rights and expectations with respect to their broadband service, including the right to:

"Eshoo and her copanelists, Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Reddit CEO Steven Huffman, and Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, remained doggedly optimistic about the future of net neutrality in the United States."

"Van Schewick argued that the motivation for removing net neutrality rules came largely from ISPs looking to capitalize on their positions as gatekeepers. She said that in 2013, prior to net neutrality regulations being put in place, six large ISPs started using “choke points” to slow down certain games and and videos, only speeding them up if the hosting websites were willing to pay.

“The ISPs have more money, and they definitely have more lobbyists,” Schewick said. “But that does not mean they get to win. They only win if we are silent.”"

"Thomas Lohninger, executive director of Epicenter Works, another NGO that ran an ostensibly grassroots campaign against the Copyright Directive, says his group worked with politicians from across the spectrum. “You can find allies in all political parties, and if you are working toward the majority, you also have to talk with all of the people and explore all avenues that you can in order to gain a majority. And that's what we did,” Lohninger says. “There are of course the Euroskeptics, that are fundamentally opposed to every type of European legislation or regulation.

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The University of Washington School of Law is delighted to announce a public workshop on the law and policy of artificial intelligence, co-hosted by the White House and UW’s Tech Policy Lab. The event places leading artificial intelligence experts from academia and industry in conversation with government officials interested in developing a wise and effective policy framework for this increasingly important technology. The event is free and open to the public but requires registration. -

Attorney and scholar Morgan Weiland ’06 will present Carleton College’s weekly convocation on Friday, April 22 from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. A leader in the study of the law and policy around the internet and other emerging technologies, Weiland has been active in policy debates surrounding telecommunications, mass surveillance, and network neutrality.

Carleton convocations are free and open to the public. They are also recorded and archived for online viewing at go.carleton.edu/convo/.

The days are numbered for federal net neutrality regulations. In response, some states are working on their own versions to prevent internet service providers (ISP) from blocking, slowing or charging more for some web traffic. Oregon, Washington and several other states have made new rules, but a bill working its way through the California legislature would go the furthest. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Ryan Singel, a media and strategy fellow at Stanford Law School, about how a state can regulate a business that crosses state lines.